to enforce them, or to propose measures to put them into execution. It might investigate, and give information or advice, but it had no authority to form an ultimate decision on any political question whatever. It had been the constant object of the busy Halifax, during his long tenure of the Presidency of the Board, to make his office independent of that of the Secretary of State for the Southern department, and in 1751, on the resignation of the seals by the Duke of Bedford, he obtained an agreement that the whole patronage and correspondence of the Colonies should be vested in it. Still, the independence of the Board was not yet perfect, for on important matters Governors might address the Secretary of State, through whom also nominations to office were to be laid before the King in Council. On the formation of the Newcastle-Pitt coalition in 1757, Halifax, disappointed in his hope of becoming a third Secretary of State, was confirmed in his old post as President of the Board, and included in the Cabinet of which he had not hitherto been a member. When, in 1761, Halifax became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and Lord Sandys succeeded him as President of the Board, the arrangements which had existed previous to 1751 were restored, but Charles Townshend, the successor of Lord Sandys in 1762, obtained the same powers which Halifax had enjoyed. He was also a Cabinet Minister. Still, even with the addition of this dignity, the power of the Board was not equal to the responsibility with which, in the eyes of the world, it seemed to be clothed, and the Presidency had seldom been a source of satisfaction to those who filled it; least of all was it likely to be so at a period when all the difficult questions left open by the peace were calling for settlement.[1]
"To render the Colonies still more considerable to Britain," writes a memorialist at this period, "and the management of their affairs much more easy to the King and His Ministers at home, it would be convenient to
- ↑ See a volume entitled Papers relative to the Two Offices of Secretary of State and Board of Trade. Lansdowne House MSS. Todd, Parliamentary Government, ii. 639, 789. Bancroft, History of the United States, ed. 1855, iv. ch. i., iv.—O. M. Dickenon, American Colonial Government 1696–1765, ch. i., 47-53.
